


I'm Not Good with my Peers

by StevetheIcecube



Series: Out of Control [6]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Adorable Tiny Tony, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:45:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky adopt kids. They have Thor, in his last year of High School, Clint and Natasha, just starting Middle School, Bruce who is six years old but way too smart for his age.</p><p>Bruce needs company. But Tony has gone through thirteen adoptions already.</p><p>He's four.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, end of November, lots of uploading to do! The start of this chapter originally had another two sections, but I took them out.

Tony was estimated to be about four and a half, but Steve and Bucky had been told that he was old for his age.

He didn't really seem it. At first glance, he was a ball of energy.

"Hello." Steve said softly, bending down to be a little more at the boy's level.

"You're here to adopt me, aren't you? I'm meant to care and be special for you but I really can't be bothered. No one ever keeps me, I've been through thirteen false adoptions."

They had been warned of that. Poor Tony seemed a damaged sort of lad, the social worker had said. He'd been hit very hard on the head, by his parents, it was presumed. He'd lost all memory of his past but he knew his name, and he had showed his extreme intelligence in already knowing words like 'presumptuous' when he woke up in hospital.

Everyone knew that Tony was lying about his memory loss. But they had no way to prove it and Tony functioned just fine without a past.

But he'd been through thirteen adoptions already.

He blew things up during the day and had panic attacks at night. He was hyperactive and he rambled. He had no desirable social skills. And he knew it. Nis words were riddled with low self-esteem and general lack of trust with everyone.

Steve couldn't help but find it hard to remember that he was only four years old.

He was much too small for a four year old (the social worker said that he hates eating). Tiny, and very skinny. His eyes were big in his face and they were very brown. Much like Bruce's.

"Yes, we're here to adopt you." Bucky said warmly. "But we aren't going to rush into it. We don't want to make you or any of our other children upset."

"You don't want me around other people." Tony said. "I'm not good with my peers, I'm too intelligent."


	2. Defensive Analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve take their children to meet Tony, but the meeting doesn't go as planned at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I was surprised at the response to this :) However, this chapter might not be as good, as this is one of my off-the-bat, middle of a storm chapters. No white Christmas for England, just blown-away roof tiles and walls that make weird noises because the plumbing might be broken but it's too cold to go out and check. And dark. (Has anyone realized how similar Natasha's name is to Vashta Nerada (which I can't spell because I'm a new Whovian)?)

"Bruce, don't freak out with Tony, please?" Steve said, brushing down the boy's coat. "He isn't good with people."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Why do you want to adopt him then?"

"If they didn't want a challenge they wouldn't have adopted you either," Thor pointed out, "miss 'I Don't Speak English'."

Natasha stuck her tongue out at him. "I don't see why you want to adopt the kid, though. He sounds pretty cuckoo to me."

Steve smiled at her. "Just behave, all of you. No stone pellets being fired at people, no wrestling matches, no flirting with Care staff, and no running off. Understand?"

"Yes, sir!" Bucky and Clint chorused.

*A*

"Hi again, Tony." Steve greeted.

Tony shrugged and didn't look up from his feet.

"Sorry." The Care worker said. "He's in a bad mood. He had everyone up all night."

Tony scoffed. "It isn't my fault that Chaz poured water over my head last night. I have triggers that aren't related to memory. They're subconscious."

Steve shared a worried look with Bucky. "Tony, like we said last time we met, we brought our children to come and meet you."

Tony shrugged. "I said I'm too smart to get on with people my age."

Steve tensed. Tony had said the one thing that Bruce always rose to challenge. "I'm smart!" Came Bruce's indignant tone.

Tony rolled his eyes. "I bet I'm smarter. Even adults aren't as smart as me."

"Neither." Bruce boasted. "I beat Thor at his science test last term, and he's in college."

"I don't believe you." Tony replied, and turned away from Bruce. "People say that they're smart all the time, when they aren't."

"Tony," The Care worker, Sharon, chided, "you should be nice to everyone."

"But I don't need anyone to help me do anything, so why do I need to be nice to people? People are only nice to get favours from people." Tony insisted. "I'm done, can I leave?"

"No." Clint said. "We were told to be nice before we came here, you should be nice too."

"But you aren't being very nice to me, are you? Everyone except the adults here has sized me up for a fight at least three times, judging my threat to you. You," he pointed at Natasha, "are in a threatening stance. You," he pointed to Bruce, "have been gripping that glass of water in a way you can throw it easily since I told you that I have a trigger. So I can go."

And he did. He left, and the atmosphere in the car on the way home was gloomy, though no one spoke about it.

Steve and Bucky decided they'd go alone for the next few times they went to meet Tony.


	3. Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve talks to Bruce about Tony and Tony is cold in his bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just...adorable. Damn little Bruce, he's just so cute.
> 
> And Tony suffers because I love him.

Steve was sat on the edge of Bruce's bed. "And the little frog hopped off of the silver platter, leaving all the Frenchmen confused, wondering how their dinner got away." He finished, closing the book.

Bruce giggled. "Do French people really eat frogs?" He asked.

"Yes. I went to France once, with Papa, and the legs were all slimy and horrible." Steve loved that despite his intelligence, which was leagues ahead of any person his age, he loved stories that were aimed more at his age group. Bucky thought that it had to do with that with what Bruce had been through, he probably didn't want to grow up.

Steve would happily throttle Bruce's biological father.

"Daddy, I'm sorry about being mean to Tony." Bruce said. "He was right, we weren't being very nice to him. I could like him, I think, but he doesn't want me to."

"It's okay, Bruce." Steve said, ruffling Bruce's hair. "You're right. Tony has been through a lot of bad things and he doesn't really like people."

Bruce nodded. "I'd like to see him again." He said. "I want to say sorry."

Steve kissed Bruce on the forehead. "In a couple of weeks, he's coming on an outing with us all. You'll see him again then. Goodnight, sweetie." He said, turning out the light and handing Bruce his teddy.

*A*

"Can you tell the Barnes' that I'm sorry?" Tony asked, standing outside Sharon's office.

"I certainly will, young man, though you should tell them yourself." Sharon said. "Now, shoo, off to bed!"

Tony nodded meekly and scaled the three flights of stairs to his dorm room, avoiding the other children and the various items scattered around on the floor.

Tony had the best and worst bed in the room. Top bunk, in the corner, next to the heater and the window. Furthest from the door. This meant that no one outside of the room could hear his cries, so no help with nightmares, and no help when he 'fell out of bed'. Yes, the people in his room, other four year olds, beat him up. Frequently.

But tonight was not one of those nights, he was lucky. He climbed into his bunk and realized, to his dismay, that it was cold. The heating wasn't turned on. The cold always back memories that he 'didn't have', so there went a good night's sleep.

Tony huddled under the blanket, trying to keep the chill from seeping into his bones. Later, he trembled under the blanket, under the power of his nightmares about the cold, and then the next day he was chided for the shadows under his eyes and his jittery nerves.


	4. Breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of something new for Steve and Bucky.

Steve and Bucky kept going to see Tony, but nothing changed. He was still as closed up as normal, he seemed to hate them.

After a while, Bucky started feeling worn down. He didn't see the point in going to see Tony, trying but achieving nothing at all. But Steve was persistent. He knew that at some point, Tony would realise they were serious about this. That if he let them, they could love him and he could be happy. But at the moment, this wasn't happening at all. There was no hint of anything changing at all. Even the social worker recommended that maybe they leave Tony to it, in case they were upsetting him more than if they just left him alone. She even suggested that Tony didn't like them because they were a gay couple, or because they already had lots of adopted children.

But Steve persisted. He refused to give up. Every week, he asked Tony's social worker how Tony was doing at school, how he was doing at the home, anything at all they could talk about. Once it approached the end of the year, Steve started asking Tony about it. He was sure that if stuff was going on, Tony would want to brag about it at least. And maybe he'd accept praise for it.

"So, Tony, how has school been recently?" He asked, almost straight into the meeting. The social worker had said not to go straight in with it after greetings, but Steve had worked out that Tony found small talk grating.

Tony's eyes glimmered for a brief moment. "They're moving me up two grades next year," he said, trying not to sound too excited about it.

"Wow!" Bruce was being moved up two next year as well, and it didn't take Steve long to respond with the pride he had with Bruce. He wasn't surprised, honestly, but that wasn't the point. Maybe praise would mean something to Tony.

"That's wonderful, Tony." Steve could hear the smile on Bucky's face as he said that. And he could see the very tiny smile on Tony's, and the faint blush. It was enough to make him want to leap out of his seat. Finally, progress with talking to Tony. Finally soldering they'd done right. It felt wonderful, because Tony had such a sweet, shy smile. It felt to Steve as if that was the first time anyone had seen Tony smile.

"It'll still be easy," he said, back to his arrogant but now slightly more flustered self. "I never find school hard, especially not Maths. Maths is easy."

Bucky mocked being offended, taking the chance much faster than Steve thought he would have. "Maths is hard!" He protested. "I never could understand Maths."

"Bucky likes reading really boring books," Steve whispered, laughing slightly. He sort of liked the books that Bucky read, but whenever he tried to read one it went over his head. He'd never been one for complicated words or sentences. He wasn't sure where Tony fell, but he imagined that his reading ability was good regardless of whether he liked reading, seeing as he had a good vocabulary and a rather advanced manner of speaking for a child of his age.

"I like books about Maths," Tony said, "but they're in the adult section and I'm only allowed to get books out of the children section." Steve nodded. He could sort of understand that. He presumed Tony was talking about the local library, which had age restrictions on book loaning that made Bruce fairly irritated on a visit to visit basis. Maybe he wanted to take out middle or high school level books on biology and chemistry, but he wasn't allowed, so Steve would sacrifice his own allotted book total to get more advanced books out for the boy. When Tony came to live with them (possibly an if, but Steve preferred to be optimistic) they'd have to share that total, even though Thor was not the biggest reader out there.

"That's a shame," Steve said, and then he had an idea. "You could ask Sharon if you could get an more advanced Maths book as a reward for advancing more than one grade this year," he suggested, and Tony's face lit up.

"Am I allowed?" He asked. "I want to, but the home doesn't have very much money to spend on us. There's no point getting a book that only I'll read, that means other people can't enjoy it and I'm being singled out. I can't do that."

Steve wanted to say that Tony being moved up a couple of grades instead of the usual one was such a good thing that he deserved to be singled out for it, but it seemed like it was a sore point with Tony.

"We didn't get to buy you a birthday present," Bucky said, "so if you aren't allowed to get a book, it could be a late birthday present."

"I don't even know when my birthday is," Tony said quickly.

"No, we don't know, but it was assumed that it happened in May," Steve said. They'd wanted to get something for him, but they'd been instructed not to. Getting a present for Tony without really knowing him might make him feel as if they did it due to a sense of obligation, and Bucky had grudgingly agreed that maybe they were right.

Tony shrugged. "You're just saying that to get me to like you," he said. The end part, the bit with them getting bored of him eventually and just ditching him, was missing this time, but it was more unsaid than unforgotten.

Tony was making a conscious choice to ignore that bit for now, though. Maybe he was giving the pair of them a chance, or maybe just a bit of a break. But it was something. It was something, and it truly felt like progress.

Steve and Bucky went home after the meeting smiling. They told all the kids, especially Bruce, what had happened. They'd all expressed interests in knowing, for whichever reason (Natasha had claimed it would be so she could make sure her knife was ready). But all of them were happy about it, showing it in their own ways.

Maybe it was six months later than intended, but they were getting there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So GUESS who's back :) only took me two years. I'm hoping the next update will be more timely than the last. Thank you to every commenter who continued to remind me this existed.


	5. Friendships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony meets Bruce for a second time, and then Clint and Natasha.

After that, Steve and Bucky felt like time flew by. Suddenly, new things with Tony were opening up all the time and this time Tony didn't go against them at every turn. He was still fragile and still prone to getting upset at the tiniest of things they said wrong, but just by being careful Steve could feel that Tony was starting to trust them more and more.

They changed their approach to introducing Tony to the people who would hopefully be his future siblings; instead of the way they had done it before, they changed to introducing them one at a time, starting with Bruce. It turned out that by himself, Tony didn't feel so threatened by the slightly older boy. In fact, after a few tense moments of 'I remember how this went last time', Bruce and Tony actually got along quite well, chattering away about science that Steve was pretty sure he vaguely remembered from years ago when he was at middle school or high school. He had a little bit of an idea about what they were going on about, but no more than that.

Once Tony had met with Bruce a few times, Steve brought Clint and Natasha along, this time without Bucky, because maybe four people at a time were a few too many. Besides, Natasha had a habit of blatantly ignoring everything Bucky said to her for some reason. Neither of them could work out exactly why, but Clint said it was just a joke on her part. Needless to say, Natasha had a strange sense of humour.

This showed when he introduced the pair again to Tony, because Natasha corrected his introduction and said that she was a Soviet assassin. Steve didn't have the heart to remind her that the Soviet Union was dissolved many, many years before she was even born. It was nice to let her have her games.

"No you're not," Tony said, with a rare smile. "The Soviet Union was dissolved in the nineties. That was ages ago." Apparently Tony liked history as well as science. That sort of surprised Steve, actually. Tony didn't seem like that kind of kid.

"Well, yes, but she's a spy," Clint said, joining in on the game as he always did. "Her mother brought her up as loyal to the Soviets and then sent her over here to spy on us." He grinned up at Steve, and Steve just smiled back. Maybe it was true. Natasha's mother had been nowhere to be found by the time he had adopted her with Bucky, but Natasha was definitely Russian, or had at least been raised there. No one quite knew how she'd gotten into America without any record of her existence and without her knowing how to speak English, but it had happened and she was here now. There was no sense in asking questions anymore, that was a past that was dead and buried (probably literally, in the case of Natasha's parents, there was no sign of them).

"Well I'm a spy sent by the Italian Mafia," Tony said, laughing slightly as he spoke it, and Steve honestly couldn't believe what he was seeing. Tony, joking around like this? He hadn't even done this with Bruce, and they got on incredibly well for two people who were remarkably different in their mannerisms. "They've trained me up from birth and now I'm feigning amnesia so no one suspects me." Steve honestly wondered if the feigning amnesia part was true. It was definitely a concern with Tony, because it felt obvious that he was lying about the lack of memory of his past, yet getting him to admit it was probably impossible, so what was even the point of pretending like he could remember it? He wasn't planning on sharing, clearly. So what was the point in pressing on about it?

"We can unite against capitalism," Natasha said with a wicked grin on her face. Steve almost laughed when he caught sight of Sharon's face. She was sitting at the door of the room just in case, because she was meant to make sure Tony was okay in all of these meetings, but apparently Steve hadn't been clear enough when he said that Natasha was a bit of a wildcard. She had a tendency to say things that made many people uneasy, and honestly he loved her for it. She certainly spiced up the conversation when she said things like this, because there were lots of people who just didn't know how to respond.

"Mussolini supported capitalism," Tony said with a short laugh, and Natasha very almost missed a beat because Tony knew what he was talking about and she was surprised. Steve was surprised too, honestly, and he'd be more surprised if he hadn't spent months talking to him.

"No, he supported supercapitalism," Clint chimed in. Clint had been surprisingly quiet today. Normally he liked to follow up most of Natasha's statements with one of his own, but today he'd sort of been sitting back and watching it go by with amusement. Steve didn't blame him, he was doing almost exactly the same thing. "Even though he claimed to be a socialist for a long time." Steve was starting to wonder if Clint and Natasha just spent all of their free time researching history, because it certainly looked like that to him. This was the kind of thing he had never really learned himself in school, so they definitely weren't getting it from there.

"We could unite against America," Natasha suggested, but she was giggling now. "We can contact our weapon dealer connections and assault the White House."

Tony nodded. "Clint can play the dramatic music while we blow things up." He started laughing too, especially when Clint stuck his tongue out at them both.

"I can totally use a gun!" He said. "I have really good aiming!" The thing was, Clint probably could use a gun, though it wasn't the same as the bow and arrows that the boy was so fond of. Steve imagined that some of the theory remained the same, especially for aiming and keeping a steady hand.

The rest of the hour long session went on much like that, with all three of them getting on almost unbelievably well. Steve reported the news back to Bucky with no small amount of glee. Things were really starting to come together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any guesses who's studying history next year? I love 20th century European history too much.


End file.
